Robert P. Swierenga was born in Chicago in 1935, educated in private Christian schools, Calvin College (B.A. 1957), Northwestern University (M.A. 1957), and the State University of Iowa (Ph.D. 1965). He was Knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in the Order of the Netherlands Lion on June 9, 2000. Calvin College named him a Distinguished Alumnus in 2003.  Professionally, he was awarded two Fulbright Fellowships at the University of Leiden, in 1976 and again in 1985, where he studied original sources and key secondary works relating to Dutch immigration to North America.

            Swierenga taught social studies in the Pella (Iowa) Christian High School (1958-61), and then became a college and university professor--at Calvin College (1961-62, 1965-68), Kent State University (1968-96), and the Van Raalte Institute of Hope College (1996-present). His area of specialty is nineteenth century American history, notably land and immigration history. In this research, he was among the first historians to use computer-aided methodologies and statistical analyses of serial records. His textbook, Quantification in American History: Theory and Research (1976), was widely used in graduate history seminars.

            Swierenga has authored or edited 23 books and more than 140 articles in scholarly journals. His major books are: Dutch Chicago: A History of the Hollanders in the Windy City (2002); Old Wing Mission: Cultural Exchange as Chronicled by George and Arvilla Smith in Their Work with Chief Wakazoo's Ottawa Band on the West Michigan Frontier (with William Van Appledorn, 2008); Elim: A Chicago Christian School and Life Learning Center for the Disabled (2005); Faith and Family: Dutch Immigration and Settlement in the United States, 1820-1920 (2000); (with Elton Bruins) Family Quarrels in the Dutch Reformed Churches of the Nineteenth Century (1999); The Forerunners: Dutch Jewry in the North American Diaspora (1994); Acres for Cents: Delinquent Tax Auctions in Frontier Iowa (1976); and Pioneers and Profits: Land Speculation on the Iowa Frontier (1968).

Major edited books include: (with J.W. Scholte Nordholt), A Bilateral Bicentennial: A History of Dutch-American Relations (1982); The Dutch in America: Immigration, Settlement and Cultural Change (1985); Netherlanders in America: A Study of Emigration and Settlement in the 19th and 20th Centuries in the United States of America, by Jacob Van Hinte (1928), translated from the Dutch by Adriaan de Wit (1985); Iowa Letters, Dutch Immigration on the American Frontier (2006); and (with Jacob Nyenhuis and Nella Kennedy) Dutch American Arts and Letters in Historical Perspective (2008).

Swierenga's compilations of Dutch immigrant records are available on CD-ROM from Family Tree Maker's Family Archives CD# 269, "Immigration Records: Dutch in America, 1880s." These include Dutch Households in U.S. Population Censuses: 1850, 1860, 1870: An Alphabetical Listing by Family Heads and Singles (1987); Dutch Immigrants in U.S. Ship Passenger Manifests, 1820-1880: An Alphabetical Listing by Household Heads and Independent Persons (1983); and Dutch Emigrants to the United States, South Africa, South America, and Southwest Asia, 1835-1880: An Alphabetical Listing by Household Heads and Independent Persons (1983).

Revised December 2008